ASBESTOS

1916
— In an old mine shaft about seven miles from Libby,
prospector Edgar Alley notices his candle causing a strange rock to
expand; he's discovered veins of vermiculite, which contains
tremolite asbestos.

1939 —
Universal Zonolite Company takes over the vermiculite mine,
processing the ore into insulation for buildings around the nation.

1956 — A state inspector takes
air samples in the vermiculite mine and processing mill, and finds
that "the asbestos in the air is of considerable toxicity."

1960s — workers handling the
vermiculite begin to come down with asbestos-related illnesses.

1963 — Multinational
conglomerate W.R. Grace & Co. takes over the vermiculite
operation. Over time, the company improves working conditions to
reduce the asbestos risk, but allows the exposure of workers and
families to continue.

1980s —
The Environmental Protection Agency conducts four studies that show
the dangers of asbestos in Libby, but keeps them quiet.

Mid-1980s — Ralph Nader's Public
Citizen magazine and Montana newspapers report on
asbestos-related illness in Libby and victim lawsuits against W.R.
Grace. The national press ignores the story.

1989 — EPA bans most uses of asbestos
nationwide.

1990 — W.R. Grace
& Co. closes its Libby vermiculite operations.

1991 — Ruling on an industry lawsuit, the
5th Circuit Court of Appeals tosses out the EPA's asbestos ban,
saying the EPA's cost-benefit analysis is flawed. The George H.W.
Bush administration lets the issue drop.

1999 — Tipped by Montana environmentalists
and lawyers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
makes the Libby asbestos disaster a national story, forcing the EPA
top dispatch a cleanup team.

2003 — Federal
Judge Don Molloy in Missoula orders W.R. Grace & Co. to pay
$54.5 million to help cover the cost of the Libby cleanup. The
company has appealed that verdict.

2004 — Insurance experts predict that
Libby asbestos victims' medical bills will total $32 million during
the next five years. W.R. Grace may pay only one-third of the cost.

2005 — Sen. Arlen Specter,
R-Pa., introduces the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act,
which would collect $140 billion from asbestos and insurance
companies to pay the victims' medical bills while making the
companies immune from lawsuits. The bill wouldn't cover most of the
Libby victims.

2005 — On Feb. 2,
President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union Address, says,
"Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back, by
irresponsible class actions and frivolous asbestos claims —
and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year."

1957 — J. Neils
sells out to the giant St. Regis Paper Co., which later builds more
sawmills.

1960s — Libby's
economy booms, employing more than 1,300 in logging and about 2,000
in constructing the Libby Dam.

1976
— Local environmentalists organize the Cabinet Resource Group
to fight risky mining proposals. Over time, environmentalists
oppose heavy-handed logging and stop two additional dams.

1984 — St. Regis Paper Co. merges with
Champion International, which liquidates old growth on the private
timberland for short-term profits.

1987 — Kootenai National Forest logging
peaks at 250 million board-feet per year.

1990s — Environmentalists' appeals and
lawsuits, as well as insect outbreaks and wildfires, cause the
Forest Service to reduce the timber cut in the Kootenai National
Forest by more than 75 percent, to about 60 million board-feet per
year.

1993 — Champion sells its
local timberland to the giant Plum Creek Timber Company. Plum Creek
finds a buyer for the sawmills, Oregon-based Stimson Lumber Co.,
which lays off hundreds of people and closes all but one of the
mills.

2002 — Stimson shuts down
the last sawmill in Libby, laying off 200 people, in part because
of the skyrocketing cost of medical insurance for workers and
families poisoned by asbestos.

2003
— Lincoln County leaders ask the Ecology Center to drop a
lawsuit that has stalled logging on the Kootenai National Forest.
The Ecology Center refuses, but Sen. Conrad Burns, R, passes a
rider that allows some timber sales to proceed.

2004 — Five environmental groups file a
new lawsuit challenging logging on the Kootenai National Forest.
Other lawsuits challenge the same risky mine proposals that began
in the 1970s.

2005 — Jim Hurst,
owner of Lincoln County's biggest remaining sawmill, in Eureka,
accounces that he'll shut down in May, laying off 90 people. He
blames environmentalists for "obstructing" logging on the national
forest.